Star Wars Just Crossed Another Box Office Mark In Record Time

Another day, another record for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. J.J. Abrams' seventh chapter in the saga of that far, far away galaxy just keeps rolling right along, and it just surpassed another impressive financial milestone, becoming the fastest movie ever to hit the $300 million mark domestically.

It took only five days for The Force Awakens to cross this threshold, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, it has once again bested Jurassic World, the previous record holder. It took Colin Trevorrow’s dinosaur adventure eight days to accomplish this feat. This is the second of Jurassic World’s records Episode VII has broken—it previously bested World’s $208.8 million opening weekend which had been the high water mark, until this weekend.

The much hyped sequel picks up 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi and shows us what has become of the likes of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), and Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), as well as introduces us to a slew of new characters. Like its predecessors, it also continues to print money. It opened with just shy of $248 million at the domestic box office, added another $40 million on Monday, and at about the halfway point today, Tuesday, it was already north of $300 million. By the end of the day experts predict it will surpass the entire domestic total of Episode II—Attack of the Clones ($310 million). That’s impressive.

Add to this the $322 million plus from international markets, and Disney, Lucasfilm, and everyone involved is having a pretty solid week.

Crossing $300 million this fast is bonkers. Jurassic World did it in eight days, The Avengers took nine, and both The Dark Knight and Avengers: Age of Ultron hit this mark in 10 days. Considering all of those movies made over a billion dollars, this puts The Force Awakens at the head of a very exclusive, very profitable pack.

Every time The Force Awakens leaves another record in the dust we start to wonder if this is the one that overtakes James Cameron’s Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time. With a $2.79 billion total, there is a long way to go, but if any movie is going to get there, this is probably the one. The box office doesn’t appear to be slowing down, the reviews have been almost overwhelmingly positive, and the audience reaction has been over the moon. This is tailor made for repeat viewings (I have a friend who saw it three times the first 24 hours, once after that, and has two more already scheduled before the end of the year), so it could very well have a long life in the theater.

Whether or not Star Wars: The Force Awakens becomes the highest grossing movie ever, it’s going to do just fine. And with merchandising and cross promotion, the amount of money this movie will earn is just absurd.

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